We almost always played at Quin's house because he had better toys
but it was also because my house and the chaos of the place made him
uncomfortable. One time I coaxed him into having a sleepover and we
had a special treat in store, we both got to sleep out on the
hide-away bed in the living room. Well, in a mobile home there is
only so much space for stuff to happen and the hide-away was right in
the middle of the public space and right at the end of the hall that
lead to all of the bed rooms. We, as boys do, goofed off and had been
warned about goofing off and that always makes it much funnier. When
something is funnier you laugh more and the process quickly falls off
the cliff. When you fall off the cliff of hilarity you plummet
quickly into the abyss of 'I've-told-you-ten-damn-times' which is a
dark and foreboding place where someone not familiar with the place
may be disoriented and scared. My dad was prone to go all the way
with his anger even with friends in the house and coming from such a
docile home life Quin was poorly equipped for that level of verbal
violence and threat. He got in his side of the hide-away about 30
seconds into the rage and covered himself completely with the blanket
and I hadn't noticed until my dad went back into his room but Quin
had started crying. I tried to talk to him a little bit to let him
know that my dad would not really kill us he was just really tired
and wanted to sleep. He wouldn't talk to me and just cried and hid
his face in the pillow, We fell asleep and as soon as he could, about
six in the morning he took his clothes and sleeping bag and walked
the half mile home. He never came back inside my house. He would
leave if he saw my dad or if my dad came home and our friendship was
never the same again. I even made him a spear with his name on it and
a cool design I had carved into it to smooth things over but he had
to give it back to me because spears were not allowed in his home. I
had that heartbreak of knowing we could never go back but wanting it
to be the same as it was.
